KUALA LUMPUR, April 13 — Two tour agencies in China have signed agreements with the Tourism, Arts, and Culture Ministry to send 450,000 of their country’s visitors here, said Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing.

The minister said the deals were made when he accompanied Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to China on March 29, after which Tiong stayed on until April 11 to promote tourism to Malaysia.

"We managed to sign agreements with two travel agencies there. One agency will bring in 350,000 and the other will bring in 100,000.

"We actually met with a few travel agencies but some didn’t manage to get the papers ready,” he told reporters at his ministry’s breaking-of-fast event today.

However, Tiong said the two agencies had asked Malaysia to first address two matters related to Chinese visitors.

The first was for easier visa application procedures and the second was for more passenger capacity on flights between the two countries, he said.

"My ministry will have a series of meetings with relevant authorities such as the immigration department on this,” he said.

Tiong said his ministry was also continuing efforts to reach the target of five million tourist arrivals from China for 2023.